Food and feeding

Adult amphibians consume a wide variety of foods. Earthworms are the main diet of burrowing caecilians, whereas anurans and salamanders feed primarily on insects and other arthropods. Large salamanders and some large anurans eat small vertebrates, including birds and mammals. Most anurans and salamanders locate prey by sight, although some use their sense of smell. The majority of salamanders and diurnal (that is, active during daylight) terrestrial anurans are active foragers, but many other anurans employ a sit-and-wait technique. Caecilians locate their underground prey with a chemosensory tentacle and capture their quarry with a powerful bite (seechemoreception). Aquatic salamanders lunge at their prey with an open mouth and appear to suck the victim in by expanding their buccal (oral) cavity. The terrestrial lunged salamander extends its sticky tongue, which is attached anteriorly to the floor of the mouth, to ensnare a meal. In lungless salamanders, the hyobranchial apparatus is not part of the process of buccal respiration; this apparatus is modified so that it can project the tongue from the mouth. The end of the tongue is sticky to adhere to prey, and prey can be captured at distances ranging from 40 to 80 percent of the salamander’s body length.

Primitive anurans have feeding mechanisms that resemble those of the typical terrestrial salamanders. More advanced anurans employ a “lingual flip,” in which the surfaces of the retracted tongue are twisted and inverted in the fully extended tongue. The pipids, which are completely aquatic, are unique among anurans; they lack a tongue and thus must essentially suck food and water into their mouth.

Form and function

Common features

Although the structure of the muscular, skeletal, and other anatomical systems are specifically modified for each group, amphibians are often set apart from other groups of animals by their characteristic skin, or integument, and evolutionary advances in vision and hearing.

The circulatory and respiratory systems work with the integument to provide cutaneous respiration. A broad network of cutaneous capillaries facilitates gas exchange and the diffusion of water and ions between the animal and the environment. Several species of salamanders and at least one species of frog (Barbourula kalimantanensis) are lungless. Amphibians also employ various combinations of branchial and pulmonary strategies to breathe. The buccal pump mechanism, which involves the pushing of air between the lungs and the closed mouth, is present in amphibians and some groups of fishes.

In addition to its roles in respiration and maintaining water balance, the integument of amphibians contains poison glands that release toxins. Specific toxins are found only in amphibians and are used to defend against predators.

The eye of the modern amphibian (or lissamphibian) has a lid, associated glands, and ducts. It also has muscles that allow its accommodation within or on top of the head, depth perception, and true colour vision. These adaptations are regarded as the first evolutionary improvements in vertebrate terrestrial vision. Green rods in the retina, which permit the perception of a wide range of wavelengths, are found only in lissamphibians.

The amphibian auditory system is also specially adapted. One modification is the papilla amphibiorum, a patch of sensory tissues that is sensitive to low-frequency sound. Also unique to lissamphibians is the columella-opercular complex, a pair of elements associated with the auditory capsule that transmit airborne (columella) or seismic (operculum) signals.

Structural differences

The environment helps to mold the morphology of an organism. The markedly different structural forms of the three living orders demonstrate that each group has had a long, separate evolutionary history.

Salamanders

Salamanders have less-specialized morphologies than do the other two orders. They have small heads and long slender bodies made up of four limbs and a tail. Although the skulls of most terrestrial salamanders consist of more individual pieces than do those of either caecilians or anurans, they are arched, narrow, and not well roofed. These skulls have an extra set of articulations with the vertebral column, a characteristic that may have been an evolutionary strategy for stabilizing the head on the axial skeleton (vertebral column) in terrestrial salamanders; other amphibians developed a specialized trunk musculature to meet this challenge.

The hyoid apparatus in the floor of the mouth enables salamanders to capture prey by projecting their fleshy tongues from the buccal cavity, although most are only able to roll their tongues forward over their lower jaws to snare their dinner. Food is held and manipulated in the buccal cavity by the teeth and tongue. This mechanism does not require adaptations to the mandibular and jaw muscles or sturdy, specialized teeth—features that most salamanders lack. Well-developed eyes and nasal organs, however, are needed to locate prey. Because salamanders do not depend on their vocal abilities, their auditory apparatus is less specialized than that of anurans.

Most salamander species have a generalized mode of locomotion, which is reflected by a lack of specialization in the musculoskeletal system. Salamanders walk methodically and move the limbs in the standard diagonal-sequence gait of quadrupeds. Aquatic salamanders show the greatest divergence from this generalized morphological pattern. Because they are kept afloat by their aquatic environment, they are often larger, devoid of limbs, and swim via the lateral undulation of the trunk and tail.

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